Development of two legged robot based on passive dynamics of quadruped simple model

Abstract

Quadruped animals exhibit high-performance locomotion using the degrees of freedom of the whole body. In this study, we developed a running robot based on the passive dynamical mechanism of a simple model of a quadruped. We developed a legged robot whose two-link hind leg behaves like a spring similar to the SLIP model. The robot experiment showed that the robot with a rigid fore leg can achieve periodic bounding. However, the robot with a flexible fore leg can not achieve periodic bounding by itself, where the body pitch angle change was small. The results suggested that the robot has a stable limit cycle, and the pitching movement of the body plays a significant role in bounding.